


Time Heals

by asexualcas



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcoholism, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dean Grieves Cas, Grieving, M/M, past mcd, post 15x18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27515833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asexualcas/pseuds/asexualcas
Summary: "I watched the man I love die. There's no normal after that."
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Kaia Nieves/Claire Novak
Comments: 3
Kudos: 82





	Time Heals

**Author's Note:**

> Don't let the MCD tag scare you!! This fic takes place after Castiel is taken by the empty in 15x18 so it starts with Dean mourning him. No one dies in this, promise.
> 
> Anyway! I can't believe Cas is queer and in love with Dean in the show... That's fucking amazing. Here's my idea of what a follow up/return could look like.
> 
> (All mistakes are mine!! I wanted to publish this before the episode tonight and that meant I didn't have time to send it to a beta.)

The clunking of Sam’s boots hurrying down the hall, the sound of his voice calling for him, barely makes his vision clear. Dean has no idea how much time has passed since… well. Since. He thinks his ass is numb and his tailbone hurts, but he can’t be sure. All he knows is the horrifying silence in his head. The absolute hollow feeling in his chest. The blurry bricks on the wall to his left. And… Cas.

Just thinking about him drives more tears to his eyes.

Eventually Sam and Jack find him. Sam’s frantic, he hears it in his voice, tries to care, to stand, to respond, but he just can’t.

“Dean, where’s Cas?” This gets his attention. _Cas._

“He-”

Dean’s voice breaks and he can’t do it, can’t say it, can’t say another damn word. He just shakes his head and tries to wipe the wetness off his face.

He has a God to kill.

Chuck is dead, Jack is in heaven, and the brothers Winchester are home. They part ways immediately, bone tired and grieving. Dean doesn’t know where Sam goes - probably to his room - and he doesn’t mean to end up here. 

He was in his own room at first, sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the space an inch in front of his eyes, letting the emptiness inside him swirl around and consume him. Eventually, he got up, went to the liquor cabinet in the kitchen, and started chugging whiskey. Then, he wandered the halls of the bunker. Now that he realized where he was, it felt inevitable.

The dungeon looks remarkably unchanged. Nothing indicates the events that took place here barely two days ago. There’s no goo on the bricks, the chair in the middle of the room is where it’s always been. 

Dean sits in the chair, stares at the last place he saw Cas, and he drinks.

“Please take the coat off.”

Sam’s voice is as raw as he feels. He just shakes his head. 

“Dean, come on,” Sam tries to reason. Dean can’t say he blames him. He knows it’s shredded and burned. Understands how terrible it must smell. But he just… can’t. 

Cas’ handprint on the fabric is almost as soothing as it was on his actual skin.

Instead, he tucks his hands into the pockets and pulls the garment tighter around him. He leans his head back against his headboard and clings desperately to the last piece of Castiel he has.

Eileen moves in. She showed up at the bunker when she got undead again and the sheer relief on Sam’s face when he saw her eliminated any chance he had of objecting.

Not that he had a leg to stand on in the first place. He barely leaves his room except to eat and pee and he hasn’t spoken since they got Chuck. Another person in the bunker wasn’t going to impact him one way or another.

She made it her mission to find all the hunters Chuck evaporated and get in touch ASAP. Sam had the idea to make the bunker a sort of half-way house for weary hunters. “To keep Ellen and Bobby close” was his reasoning. Dean doesn’t remember. All Dean knows is that Jody and Donna and the girls are around a lot more.

Being around Claire is helpful in a way. She seems to get it. 

The hardest part is how hard Sam and Eileen try to loop him into things. Whether it’s big, consequential plans like converting their home or small movie nights, one of them always at least tries to include him. And he does what he can to stay involved, keep his head above water.

One night, the girls are over and Sam tells him they’re choosing something to watch on Netflix. In the Dean Cave. 

Sneaky bastards… Effective, he’ll give his family that. But sneaky.

He doesn’t even get through the door.

The girls settled on some Canadian show with Catherine O’Hara but he barely registers the thumbnail.

Claire is pulling away from Kaia, clearly after kissing her. Sam nudges Eileen forward so he can slip in behind her. Alex is on the arm of Patience’s chair and Donna has her forehead on Jody’s shoulder, shaking with laughter. 

Bile rises in his throat and his ears rush and ring. He flees before anyone notices he’s there and the Johnny Walker in his room is gone before the next morning then discarded in the dungeon garbage.

He starts speaking again a little bit before Sam finds out his secret.

It was slow. It started with a grunt here, a word there. Eileen taught him sign to fill in some of the basics and that helped. The relief on Sam’s face when he teased him about his damn “power smoothies” made the pain in his unused throat almost worth it.

Dean makes trips to the dungeon almost nightly. He doesn’t do much, just stares at the wall, gets blackout drunk, and falls asleep slouched in the chair. It’s here that Sam finds him, a whiskey bottle abandoned on the floor.

“Dean?” Sam’s voice startles him awake. He jolts and immediately feels pain rip through his back. _Gettin’ too old for this shit,_ he thinks.

“What are you doing in here?” Sam’s voice is tinged with worry and Dean feels a pang of guilt.

“Nothin’,” he says, hoisting himself off the chair. The change makes his head spin and his back muscles twitch unpleasantly.

“Bullshit.” 

That gets Dean’s attention. Sam’s been so gentle with him since Cas that it’s almost annoying, so for him to just come out and say it…

“What?”

“Bullshit, Dean. You were sleeping in a shitty metal chair in the dungeon facing the wall. That’s not nothing.”

He hates that he can’t argue, but he can’t just say it either. He can’t say that he’s done this every night for however long it’s been since the wall goo swallowed Cas. Or that he does it because he hopes it will spit him back out again.

So he puts on a brave face that Sam doesn’t buy, and says “Just doin’ some quality control, Samantha.”

His smile drops the second his shoulders pass his brother. Sam’s exasperated voice does nothing to call him back.

It’s two days later, Dean’s drunk, and en route to the dungeon. Normal night nowadays.

Only tonight, Sam’s already there and waiting for him. And it’s too late to act like he’s not there because Sam’s eyebrows are up and _shit_ , Dean’s not drunk enough for this.

He steps into the room, stumbling a little bit. Sam stays in the chair, eying him like he’s a grenade about to go off.

Which… fair.

“What happened that night? When you and Cas went to Billie’s library and he wasn’t here when I got back?”

Sam cuts right to the chase without formality and, yeah, Dean is nowhere near drunk enough for this conversation. But apparently, his drunken brain is, because, to his abject horror, he starts talking.

“He… he was there. He told me- he told me he had traded his life for the kid when he was dying. But the empty… it wouldn’t come for him until he was h-happy.” Dean curses the break in his voice but clears his throat and presses on. “Then he said something about not being able to have the only thing he wants. And how happiness isn’t in having, it’s in saying it.” 

“What did he mean?” His brother presses. Dean is silent for what feels like forever before he can manage a response. And even then, it’s a close thing.

“He said he loved me, Sammy.” His voice is small, barely a whisper, and choked out around suffocating pressure in his throat. “He said he loved me then fuckin’ died before-” Dean stops himself, shaking his head minutely. He can’t say it, because saying it makes it real and if it hurts this much when it’s not real, then making it real is going to kill him.

“Before what, Dean?”

Turns out Sam isn’t giving him that choice. Maybe that’s a good thing.. If Cas found so much freedom in admitting it, then maybe he’ll get the same.

“Before I could tell him I love him too.”

For the first time since it happened, Dean _shatters_. His sobs sound like screams and even to his own ears, it’s the most pain-filled sound he’s ever heard. He feels his brother’s arms come around him and haul him in for a hug. Tears soak the fabric of Sam’s shirt quickly, but Sam doesn’t let up his hold, just rubs his back, trying to soothe him.

“And I’m happy for you,” Dean says into Sam’s shoulder. “With Eileen, I’m freakin’ thrilled, it just-”

“It reminds you too much of him.” The way Sam says it, it’s not a question: it’s a fact that Dean doesn’t bother confirming.

“I didn’t say anything, Sammy. I didn’t say anything, he never knew, and now-”

Sam pulls him in again and Dean clings to him like he’s a liferaft in an open and unforgiving ocean. Maybe he is right now. 

They don’t move for what feels like hours and Dean doesn’t sleep at all.

After that, life around the bunker is lighter. Now that his family knows, he feels like he can be around them more. The morning after Dean spilled to Sam was the hardest; his head _hurt_ and he didn’t want to talk about it any more than he already had. But then Eileen came in with a heaping plate of eggs, a promise of coffee if he finished a glass of water, and some movie on her laptop. Then she stayed. All day, they laid side-by-side in Dean’s bed. Not talking all that much, but every time she left, she ruffled his hair. She held his head on her shoulder and pressed her lips to his cheek when he couldn’t hold the tears in and she didn’t tell Sam. 

He knew he smelled like sweat and whiskey and grief and definitely needed a shower, but she stayed until nightfall. She kissed his cheek again and asked if he could make it to the couch tomorrow. He nodded and the pride on her face blinded him.

It carried on like that for weeks. Eileen or Sam guide him gently away from the dungeon door when he inevitably ends up kicking at it in the dead of night, cursing the padlock Sam had installed. Nightmares were soothed by whiskey and the days after felt like his own personal hell. 

He saw Cas everywhere, in everything. During the day, he was in the sunlight streaming through the door when it opened. He was in the way Sam laughed when Eileen told a joke. Hell, he was in every room in the damn bunker, at the coffee pot, the war table, every inch of space was permeated with him.

At night, it was almost worse. He tortured himself with old memories, going back through them and painting them with a new brush. When Cas lay dying on that old couch in that barn. When he stopped in that crypt. Everything in Purgatory. The staring, the touches, all of it… was because he loved him. Was _in love with him_.

He didn’t sleep for days after that sunk in.

It’s been months since Chuck died. Dean’s doing better, able to go a few hours at a time without thinking about Cas. Then someone will mention him, or Claire will call, and he’ll retreat within himself for a few hours. Sam and Eileen fill in the now-steady stream of hunters that go through the bunker - “Don’t worry about it,” they say to well-meaning peers, glancing at him in worry. “It happens sometimes.”

They’ve asked people to not knock, because it gets his hopes up. Maybe, just one last time, Cas came back to him. Just one more miracle.

If he prays more now than ever before, that’s his business.

It was a normal day when everything came crashing down. Eileen was at the bunker with Sam assigning cases and Dean was grocery shopping in Lawrence. Sam had requested his all-natural bullshit and that was the closest place to them that had it. Fuckin’ stupid if you asked Dean, but hey, whatever would make his annoying kid brother happy.

He loaded the trunk of the Impala, slammed the hood shut, then almost ran into someone on his way around the car. Probably whoever just got out of the shitty pick up truck that parked next to him.

“Sorry,” he muttered without looking up.

“Dean.”

His heart stopped cold in his chest. His lungs froze, air stuck somewhere between his nose and his windpipe. He didn’t dare look up. Or breathe. Or even begin to let himself hope that the voice in front of him belongs to _him._

“Dean,” he repeats. He sounds scared. Desperate. “Dean, please look at me.”

He shakes his head. The pavement gets blurrier with every pass and he can’t tell if it’s because of his pounding head or if he’s starting to cry. 

“No,” he forces out. “No because if this is a trick, if you’re not-” He cuts himself off with a choked noise.

Then he feels a hand on his shoulder. His left shoulder. The one with the handprint, _that_ handprint, and he can’t help it. His head jerks up.

Piercing blue eyes meet his. Under them is a straight, strong nose, chapped lips, and a firm jaw. A mop, and he means a _mop_ of dark hair completes the man in front of him. 

But that’s not what convinces him. Not the hand still unyielding over his canvas jacket or the hair, or even the signature trench coat. No, what does it, as crazy as it sounds, is how happy those eyes look. It’s how he looked the last time he saw him, after-

He shoves Castiel back and wipes his hand roughly down his face. He’s an idiot for thinking this is actually Cas. The empty wouldn’t let that happen again, let alone Billie. No, this is a demon, or a shapeshifter, or… Dean doesn’t know, but it isn’t Cas. It can’t be.

“You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?”

“What?” God, it even got the _head tilt_ right. Dean’s heart hurts.

“Making a Cas suit to find me and, what, torment me with?” he asks rhetorically. “That’s freakin’ low, even for… whatever you are.”

“Dean,” Not-Cas implores him. “It’s me. I swear.”

The hand still clenched on his shoulder tightens and the next thing Dean knows he’s snapping at the creature wearing his - _Cas’_ \- face to get in the car. It goes willingly.

When they get back to the bunker, it gets the welcome that Cas deserves, looks as bashful as Cas would, and Dean shoves through them all, frog marching the thing into a separate and warded room.

Then he tests it. Everything he can think of gets applied, everything in the bunker is used in Dean’s effort to find out what this thing is.

It fails every single test Dean throws at it, even the angel blade.

“I’m human,” it explains as it presses a blood-soaked bandana to yet another wound.

Dean’s head is racing. He looks back at Sam for support but his brother clearly thinks he’s crazy so he whirls back on the thing pretending to be Cas.

“How?”

“Someone called Lucifer to Earth,” it starts. “When he woke up and left, the Empty shattered. I suppose it can only handle so much travel in and out.” It’s voice goes up at the end, making it sound like a question. Dean doesn’t buy it, even though he feels like he’s dying. “At any rate, I ‘slipped through the cracks’-” _those damn air quotes._ “- and ended up somewhere in Australia. For eight months, I’ve been trying to come back to you.”

Dean stumbles back like he’s been slapped. _Eight months_. It’s been eight months since the wall opened up and swallowed Cas because confessing his feelings for him made him that happy. Eight months of all-consuming emptiness in his chest, eight months of sobbing in his dark room at night…

“Come back to you.”

This is Cas. The real Cas. _His_ Cas. 

And suddenly, it's too much. He’s staring into familiar warm blue eyes, probably has been for a while if history holds, and it hits him. Castiel is in love with him. The man Dean loves loves him back.

So he does what any rational person would do.

His answering “okay” comes out gritty and rough. Then, he spins on his heel, beelines to his bedroom, and stays there for three days.

  
  
  
  


**Castiel**

Life at the bunker isn’t how he remembers it. For starters, there are significantly more than four people within its walls, but beyond that, it just feels different. There’s a bustling energy around him constantly and it’s honestly exhausting. 

Sam puts him to work tracking down hunters. He drives around the country picking up stragglers and bringing them home and on record. It’s rewarding in it’s own way, knowing he’s helping other hunters find safety within his home’s walls.

He doesn’t see Dean for three weeks.

Sam assures him that he’s okay whenever he asks, but that somehow hurts worse. It means Dean’s coming out of his room intentionally when he’s not around; it means Dean is avoiding him.

He didn’t know what to expect when he finally made it home, but it wasn’t this. Awkwardness, sure. Some stilted conversations? Absolutely. Dean avoiding the topic of his confession altogether? Without a doubt. But he didn’t expect the righteous man to be _this_ immature about it. 

“If he doesn’t want me here, the least he could do is tell me directly,” he laments to Sam over beers one night.

Sam chokes. “Wait, what do you mean?”

“He’s timing his excursions for when I’m not around,” Cas points out. “I haven’t seen him since he put me through every test he knows. He’s avoiding me.”

Sam looks dumbstruck, which confuses Cas. Sam is an intelligent man, and it’s not much of a reach in logic. Which means… 

“Has he told you differently?” Cas blurts the thought out as it occurs to him. Sam just blinks at him, mouth slightly open in shock.

“You two really don’t talk at all, do you?” It’s a strange question, but Cas shakes his head in answer anyway. The simple motion makes his chest feel like something’s sitting on it. _Rejection,_ he reminds himself. It’s a tool he learned somewhere in South Asia: explicitly naming your emotions makes them easier to bear.

It’s not working.

“Okay,” Sam starts, running his hands through his hair. “Cas, Dean thinks the same about you. He thinks you don’t want to be here because you agreed to round up hunters in trouble.” Castiel feels his heart pound in his chest and his eyes go wide. “As for the avoiding you thing… you don’t really stick around long enough to-”

“Because I thought he didn’t want me here!” Cas winces when he hears his own raised voice echo off the kitchen walls.

This is a lot and Cas doesn’t quite know what to do with it. He’s annoyed at Dean, he’s annoyed at himself, but mostly he’s just tired. He just _had_ to go fall for the most stubborn and emotionally constipated human he could find, didn’t he?

“Okay,” Sam says after a moment. The tone of his voice makes it clear that he’s planning something and Castiel knows that it’s best to just let him do it. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do…”

Hours pass before Sam’s plan comes to fruition. He had told Dean earlier that Cas was leaving that evening on another recon trip if he wanted to say hi and apparently got an annoyed grunt in return. In truth, Cas wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Yes, to see Dean and mend whatever rift had formed between them, but mostly because he just wanted to be home for a while. He misses his family fiercely when he’s gone and motel beds are truly horrible…

Eventually, Sam tells Cas to go to the Dean cave and pick something to watch on Netflix while he summons his brother. Cas is too nervous to do anything with the remote, so he chooses the first thing on the “Watch Again” list: a comedy special from John Mulaney.

He gets it ready in almost no time and he’s too nauseous to eat the popcorn Sam must have set down on the table, so his mind races. What if Dean is actually avoiding him? What if the reason is he doesn’t reciprocate? What if he’s disgusted by Cas now that he knows? He thinks that would hurt the worst of all. Dean being fully revolted by him because of something he can’t control…

Clomping boots interrupt his thoughts and he reflexively springs to his feet, palms sweating.

“... telling you, Sammy, I’m f-”

Cas can pinpoint the moment Dean sees he’s there. His eyes go wide, then narrow, then the muscle in his jaw jumps and his posture changes. He’s mad, Cas knows that, but… he’s _here_. He’s here and Sam is keeping him from running, and Castiel has missed him so. Damn. Much.

“-talk to him.” Cas missed the first part of what Sam said before he bodily shoves Dean into the room, but it doesn’t seem important. Dean is standing there with his arms crossed, staring at Cas with pain all over his face. Cas hates it.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “Sam told me you thought I don’t want to be here because I took the recon role, but I do. I want to be here more than anything, and it pains me more than I can say that you ever thought differently. I’m truly sorry.”

Dean shoots a hard look at his brother before considering Castiel again. His looks less angry, or at least his eyes do, and now he just looks sad. Cas can tell he’s trying to be mad, to make him believe his anger, but he almost looks… longing. He looks similar to how he did whenever Cas would feel drawn to him when he had his grace.

Dean opens and closes his mouth for a second before steeling himself. 

“‘S fine,” he mumbles. “I- I’m glad you’re here now.”

Music to Castiel’s ears.

“Me as well,” he admits, trying hard to not smile.

Despite their brief conversation, the atmosphere is almost stifling as John Mulaney tells joke after joke. Most of them at least draw a chuckle from Sam or a huff from Cas, but Dean’s storminess from Sam’s other side is impossible to fully ignore. Cas knows there’s more they need to talk about, a lot more, but he had at least felt hopeful at the outside of their evening. Maybe that was naive… 

About half way through, then the tension was mounting to nearly unbearable regardless of what was on the TV, Sam hauls himself off the couch, pausing the TV in his movements. He picks up the popcorn bowl, mutters “refill”, and all but runs from the room.

Now, it’s just Dean and Cas, on opposite sides of a fairly small couch. They’re within arms distance of each other, could touch if they tried. Not that Cas is stupid enough to try, but the thought is comforting.

The popcorn machine pops softly in the kitchen after a moment. Castiel tries to ignore the awkwardness, realizing this is inevitable until he and Dean can actually _talk_ , but it’s unyielding. Fully human now, it nearly chokes him. 

_It will get better with time,_ he tells himself. It feels like a lie even to his own inner ears _._

“This is stupid,” Dean says gruffly.

Cas hesitates for a moment before speaking, choosing his words carefully. “I apologize for the discomfort my feelings caused, but I find I can’t apologize for telling you.”

He can’t look up. He _can’t_. The terror eating at him is too strong, keeping his gaze locked on the remote on the table in front of him. 

The silence is heavy again. Castiel fiddles with everything he can reach on his body and around him - his coat, his own hands, he pulls a thread loose on the couch - before he reaches for the remote to trace the buttons.

His path is interrupted by a hand on his face, guiding him to the left. Suddenly, he’s looking into terrified green eyes for a split second before he feels lips on his.

His heart stops dead in his chest. He can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t react. Dean pulls back after a second. It’s barely a brush, but it was there, it happened, and Cas can’t believe it. Not totally.

“Please don’t do something you don’t mean,” he whispers into the scant space between them, the fear of rejection making his chest clench. “I… I couldn’t handle that.”

He sees Dean’s eyes light up with a sort of wry humor.

“Deal.”

Then there’s another hand on his face and he’s being kissed to within an inch of his life. Cas gets on board quickly and increases the pressure of their lips, puts one hand on Dean’s leg closest to him and the other behind his head.

Finally, he does the things he barely let himself dream about. He cards his hand through Dean’s soft hair, rubs his thumb over his cheekbone, licks his bottom lip (getting a pleased hum from Dean), and lets his body pour all the love and affection into Dean that he can’t say.

They stay locked like that for several minutes before Dean breaks away. He leans his forehead against Castiel’s but refuses to meet his eyes. They’re both breathing harder than they were and Cas allows Dean whatever time he needs; it’s not like it’s a chore, being this close, feeling _this_ connected with the man he loves. Watching his long eyelashes hit his cheek every time he blinks and getting glimpses of his full, kiss-swollen lips is probably his version of heaven.

Finally, he hears Dean’s breathing even out and hears him swallow. He expects Dean to back up, put some space between them, but instead, the unthinkable happens.

Dean leans his head harder against Cas’s for just a moment before nodding minutely. Cas doesn’t even let himself hope he’s saying what he thinks he is, but - 

“You, too, sunshine.”

His heart is pounding and blood rushes in his ears. There’s other things that Dean could mean, and Castiel would be perfectly happy with those other things, but he needs to know. He can’t leave this vague, not after everything.

“Me what,” he whispers.

Dean’s eyes flick up to his. They’re brimming with unshed tears and smiling.

“I love you too, Castiel.”

Happiness explodes inside of him. He feels like choirs are singing around them, fireworks are going off inside his chest, and he’s kissing Dean again. His hand is clenched gently around the hair on the top of Dean’s head to keep him close but his lips are desperate. Every mumble he pulls out of Dean that sounds remotely like “yes,” or “love you,” feels like benediction and he never wants to stop kissing this man. He wants to sleep in his bed and hold him or be held and wake up every morning to those green eyes and -

Sam clears his throat and they jump away from each other. They look over their shoulders, Dean glaring, Cas too dazed to have any strong emotions about the younger Winchester’s presence, and Sam grins back. 

“Took you long enough,” is all he says before rejoining them on the couch. “There are new ground rules for movie night, though. No messing around with me right next to you.”

Dean groans as though all his hopes have been dashed and Castiel outright laughs which prompts a scandalized glare from Dean.

“I refuse to traumatize your brother like that, Dean,” he defends himself. “I would appreciate retaining the ability to look him in the eyes, even if they are less pretty than yours.”

Dean turns a truly endearing shade of red at this while Sam sputters out an indigent “hey!”. Cas just shrugs at him; Dean has a prettier everything.

 _And he’s mine,_ Castiel thinks. Sure it’s premature as they haven’t actually talked about it, but if they love each other - an absurd fact in and of itself - he sees no reason to doubt the notion. _All mine_.

The trio settles in again after more griping between Sam and Dean. This time, Dean and Cas share the couch and Sam takes up the chair. Cas lies with his head in Dean’s lap while Dean plays with his hair. 

Later, Eileen will join them and sit on the floor between Sam’s legs. Then the TV will be shut off, warding checked and doors locked, and Castiel will follow Dean into his bedroom. They spend hours just kissing and holding each other, getting it all out of their systems after nearly a decade of longing. They eventually fall asleep tangled together, breathing each other’s air, with smiles on their faces and love overflowing in their hearts.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on Twitter! @asexual_cas


End file.
